$2.8 Million Buys Bush Park

Price Shows Rising Values

MIDDLESEX — A land sale for an apparent record amount on the shores of the Rappahannock River confirms Middlesex County's new reputation as a hot place to buy land.

Bush Park Camping Resort, a 92-acre campground on the Rappahannock River, was sold for $2.8 million to the subsidiary of a North Carolina mobile home manufacturer. Nelson B. Horsley Jr., vice president of IsaBell K. Horsley Real Estate, which sold the property, said it was the largest Middlesex land sale in his 13 years in real estate.

The campground was bought by Oakwood Land Development Corp., an arm of Oakwood Homes, which makes and sells mobile homes in eight southern and Atlantic states. The sellers were the three daughters of the late Calvin Butler, Leona B. Brownley, Margaret B. Williams and Callie Hope Butler Revere, and their husbands, Carlton Brownley, Kenneth W. Williams, and James R. Revere.

The high price for the campground reflects the mushrooming value of real estate along Middlesex's waterfront, which Virginia Business magazine called "the platinum coast" because of estimates of future land prices. A recent county reassessment of taxable property indicated a 32 percent jump in values over the last two years, and members of the Board of Supervisors have expressed doubt that assessed values have kept pace with the market.

"We have no plans to develop any property at Bush Park other than the business that is already there," said Reese Hart, vice president for real estate at the Greensboro, N.C., land development corporation. He said Oakwood would upgrade the water system and the sewers and would paint some of the buildings at the campground. The company also plans to dredge a channel in Bushy Park Creek and add boat slips.

Hart said Oakwood had no long-term plans for the site. "We've got two plans," he said. "We're going to open the park and we're going to get a handle on the business."

Horsley said the land drew its value from the waterfront, not the campground. "Bush Park has excellent soil, so it has a lot of options." Good soil makes sewage disposal easier and is better for building, he said.

The real estate agent added that a large company like Oakwood had a variety of choices with land like Bush Park. "With the land going for such high prices, you'd almost have to go with some form of heavy development," such as houses or condominiums, he said.

Still, Oakwood could gain by just waiting. "For a corporation that can afford to hold on to something like that, the potential is tremendous," Horsley said. "The sale shouldn't affect the people who have campers there right now."

The campground has 370 sites for campers, of which about 250 are occupied by the same owners each season, said Barbara Norcum, director of operations for Oakwood Land Development Corp. Hart said it would be a priority for his company to get full occupancy on the sites.

Though this is Oakwood's first purchase of a campground, the corporation owns 1,400 spaces for mobile homes in five parks in North Carolina and Georgia.